CELPIP Speaking Task 2 – Walkthrough
CELPIP Speaking Task 2 – Walkthrough: This blog will discuss CELPIP Speaking Task 2, which focuses on personal experience. The prompt requires you to talk about your personal experience, covering various topics. When taking this test, it is crucial to possess excellent creativity.
Let me briefly touch upon that: The time allotted for preparation remains unchanged at 30 seconds, but you have only 60 seconds to speak, making it slightly shorter. In the first test, you had 90 seconds, whereas here you are given only 60 seconds. This essentially summarizes the overall structure of the second test.
I will address the important points below as they are crucial for achieving a score of 10 or even higher. The first significant point I want to emphasize for this task is:
1. Make Notes
In this task, you must take notes, and it is highly important to do so. Making notes is crucial because, once again, you are discussing your personal experience, similar to the first task. However, in this case, it is even more crucial because you only have 60 seconds. It is vital to stay within the time limit and avoid finishing your answer before the 30-second mark. The 30-second reduction is quite significant.
2. Ask the 5Ws every time (who, what, when, where, why)
When discussing a personal experience, you usually have a lot to explain. However, mentioning finishing before 60 seconds does not mean you should conclude significantly earlier. Let’s say you take 30 seconds to answer; you should strive to come as close as possible to the 60-second mark. You should utilize as much time as you can. The best way to achieve this for this specific question is to address the five W’s: who, what, when, where, and why. You should aim to answer three out of the five questions. Essentially, these questions will guide you in identifying relevant aspects of the personal experience in question.
3. Come up with the easiest answer (don’t force the truth)
I highly recommend coming up with the easiest answer and not forcing the truth. Why? Because I have witnessed many CELPIP and IELTS participants forcing the truth on a question they feel knowledgeable about or are familiar with, and it often backfires. I have explained this before, and sometimes the truth can be more complicated than you think. It may sound smooth and confident in your head, but once it comes out of your mouth, you realize there are a lot of complexities involved.
Loopholes or aspects that require further elaboration can consume more time and prevent you from properly concluding your answer. Therefore, I highly recommend coming up with the easiest answer. This is why I mentioned earlier that good creativity is necessary for this question. It is better to invent an answer rather than ponder over whether you have personal experience. Please keep this in mind.
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CELPIP Speaking Task 2 – Walkthrough
4. Use Past Tense and a Descriptive Language
Don’t forget to use past tense and descriptive language. What does this mean?
- Because this is a personal experience and it has already happened, the dominance tense will be in the past tense. You might use simple tense when you kind of revert that to the present but that usually makes it quite complicated. I don’t recommend that if you don’t yet have a good command of your English Language, so stick to the past tense.
- So if you want to stick to just one particular tense simple continuous and if you do want to stick to just one particular tense then stick with simple past tense but again one of the criteria for CELPIP speaking is your grammar tickle range, so if you want to get a 10 or be higher, then you have to make sure that you use a variety of grammatical structures so not just simple tense but also continuous perfect, perfect continuous etc.
When it comes to descriptive language, you have to describe things that happened in your personal experience. You may also describe the items that you mentioned. You might also want to mention or describe the items that are in or personal experience or the timing etc.
This expands on the questions of who, what, when, and where, allowing you to ask, “Who is like my best friend?” You might also consider adding “my best friend ever since kindergarten.”
If you mention a location such as “in the mountains,” you could state, “Somewhere in the cold mountains of Europe.” Feel free to provide additional details to enhance your main points.
5. Answer all the prompts questions
This expansion covers the questions of who, what, when, and where, enabling you to inquire, “Who resembles my best friend?” You may also contemplate including “my best friend ever since kindergarten.”
If you specify a location like “in the mountains,” you can express, “Somewhere in the cold mountains of Europe.” Please feel free to incorporate additional details to enrich your key points.
Ensure you answer all the prompt questions because you usually receive sub-questions or follow-up questions within the same prompt, so leaving any blank would be inappropriate.
6. Make the closing Sentence
Please ensure you utilize the entire 60 seconds I mentioned earlier, emphasizing the importance of including a closing sentence to demonstrate your proficiency in properly concluding your response, which showcases your skills effectively.
Lastly, failing to provide a concluding sentence in your answer significantly hampers its cohesion, as an incomplete summary lacks coherence.
These are the key points I wanted to highlight for task two. Now, let’s examine the sample answer and explore ways to respond appropriately.
SAMPLE
- Talk about a book you’ve read recently. What was it about, and what did you think of it?
- Describe a trip you took recently. Where did you go and what did you do? What did you enjoy most about the trip?
I will not provide a full answer, but I will explain how you should approach it. Let’s focus on the first question. The book should be the main topic of discussion. If I were in your position, I don’t recall the last time I read a book. If it happens to be a business or management theoretical book, summarizing or explaining it would be time-consuming and complex. However, I won’t go down that path. Instead, I will choose the simplest book that I can explain, a book that I have a clear memory of—Goosebumps.
For those familiar with Goosebumps, it is an easy book to explain. When encountering a question of this nature, it’s important to immediately decide what you will discuss. Choose a topic that you can easily explain. It’s fine if you are knowledgeable about the subject, but be cautious not to overcomplicate your answer or speak excessively to the point where you don’t finish your response. It is advisable to stick to something simple.
I picked the topic Goosebumps, and I will now brainstorm each question in that 30 seconds. What is it about answering those questions? Can I pick any random ghost or monster and stick it to the Christmas title, just like in any other movie? The examiner will check, so I can say something like, “Specifically, it was about vampires,” and then choose a familiar monster. As for my thoughts on it, I can make them up. I’ll pretend that I love it and select the easiest description to explain, which could be the story of the book or the main takeaway.
We can talk about cheesy things, as long as we elaborate well. For example, we could discuss the power of friendship. None of this has to be true, but it does need to make sense.
Now, let’s talk about Goosebumps and vampires. Maybe the power of friendship isn’t a great idea, but we can focus on bravery instead. We can discuss how someone faces the fear of confronting a vampire and ultimately wins the battle with the help of their friends. Working together, the power of friendship could be a subtheme in that scenario. This is how the planning should look.
To provide a brief example, it might sound something like this:
“I recently read Goosebumps, specifically about vampires. The story revolves around a group of children who are haunted by a menacing vampire in a small American town. It serves as a coming-of-age tale, highlighting how the children grow up and work together to defeat the vampire. This book resonated with me because it captures the essence of facing fears with friends. It doesn’t have to be a vampire; I had my fears as well. But these children had to confront a terrifying monster, as not doing so would put many lives at risk. This required significant bravery, and it deeply touched me. Inspired by the book, I’m now motivated to confront my fears. It’s a book that will stay with me for a long time.”
Something along those lines. I didn’t time it, so it might be over 60 seconds or below, but the approach is more or less the same. This is what you need to do for the assigned tasks, so hopefully, this helps you guys.
Conclusion:
CELPIP Speaking Task 2 can be daunting, but with thorough preparation and practice, you can enhance your speaking skills and achieve success on the exam. Remember to understand the prompt, plan your response, and structure your answer with a clear introduction, well-supported body paragraphs, and a concise conclusion. Effective time management and regular practice will help you build confidence and improve your overall performance. Good luck on your CELPIP journey!
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